Neither most Tea Partiers, nor most Republicans, nor most Democrats remembered that very point, regardless of what you'd like to believe.
There is no partisan divide on ignorance here.
And of course, if fiscal responsibility was actually the primary concern of the Tea Party, they would not have been founded primarily in opposition to a President from the party that last balanced the budget, nor would the vast majority of them think that the party that turned that balanced budget into the largest deficit in the history of the country was "realistically the only real option" (Reagan also ran up a horrible deficit, as did Bush I to a slightly lesser degree). They are largely voting Republican because they are aligned on other views (60% of self-described Tea Party members, for instance, say they favour "government based on Christian principles", and 82% of them say that the Republican party represents their views either "Moderately Well" or "Very Well"), not because the Republicans are even slightly credible as the party of fiscal responsibility.
And you're ignoring that the "elites" ideas on who was electable were correct. Christine O'Donnell is going to lose the race, and any generic Republican in her place would have won it. Same goes for Jim Miller (in fact, there's a good chance the generic Republican he replaced will STILL win it), and while Angle is probably going to beat Reid, polls consistently show it would be "definitely" rather than "probably" if it was a non-TP Republican in her place.
So no, they're not going to change much, other than losing a few races Republicans had no business losing in these midterms and quite possibly the next election as well. But then, why would they? "Fiscal responsibility" as code for "lower my taxes and cut social
services, especially the ones I don't personally use" is not exactly a shocking new viewpoint on
the American political scene, to say the least.
There is no partisan divide on ignorance here.
And of course, if fiscal responsibility was actually the primary concern of the Tea Party, they would not have been founded primarily in opposition to a President from the party that last balanced the budget, nor would the vast majority of them think that the party that turned that balanced budget into the largest deficit in the history of the country was "realistically the only real option" (Reagan also ran up a horrible deficit, as did Bush I to a slightly lesser degree). They are largely voting Republican because they are aligned on other views (60% of self-described Tea Party members, for instance, say they favour "government based on Christian principles", and 82% of them say that the Republican party represents their views either "Moderately Well" or "Very Well"), not because the Republicans are even slightly credible as the party of fiscal responsibility.
And you're ignoring that the "elites" ideas on who was electable were correct. Christine O'Donnell is going to lose the race, and any generic Republican in her place would have won it. Same goes for Jim Miller (in fact, there's a good chance the generic Republican he replaced will STILL win it), and while Angle is probably going to beat Reid, polls consistently show it would be "definitely" rather than "probably" if it was a non-TP Republican in her place.
So no, they're not going to change much, other than losing a few races Republicans had no business losing in these midterms and quite possibly the next election as well. But then, why would they? "Fiscal responsibility" as code for "lower my taxes and cut social
services, especially the ones I don't personally use" is not exactly a shocking new viewpoint on
the American political scene, to say the least.